Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Priddis May Species Count

A very heavily cropped, quick shot of this beautiful Baltimore Oriole, seen at Barb Castell's acreage SW of the city. Each year, when a handful of us cover the Priddis area for the annual, provincial May Species Count, one of our highlights is visiting Barb's amazing bird feeders. She has such a huge variety of birds that visit - we would happily spend hours watching (and taking photos) there. Unfortunately, we have the rest of the route to cover.

A terrible quality of photo, but usually you never see a Sora, only hear them! We were very lucky that this one was walking through the water and grasses near the edge of the road when we were south west of Calgary two days ago. We were doing the annual May Species Count in the Priddis area, on a dull, overcast day. "A small, secretive bird of freshwater marshes, the Sora is the most common and widely distributed rail in North America. Its distinctive descending whinny call can be easily heard from the depths of the cattails, but actually seeing the little marsh-walker is much more difficult." From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Sora/lifehistory

Horsetails and their reflections, seen in someone's back garden pond on our recent May Species Count in the Priddis area, south west of Calgary.